‘Wildcat’ Chesapeake Billionaire McClendon Becomes the Hunted

The 52-year-old executive at the center of the unfolding drama at Chesapeake Energy, the nation’s second largest natural gas company, is a brash risk-taker from a powerful oil family who decided to strike out on his own. A nephew of Robert Kerr, a former governor of Oklahoma who founded oil giant Kerr-McGee, Aubrey McClendon “could have had [...]

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Aubrey McClendon is out as CEO of Chesapeake Energy after turning a company he founded from scratch 30 years ago into the country's second-largest natural gas producer. What happened? The short answer is the low natural gas prices destroyed the company's earnings.

HOUSTON — Aubrey McClendon was the face of the nation’s natural gas boom, a swashbuckling innovator who pioneered a shale revolution.
He built a fortune as head of Chesapeake Energy, whose embrace of new production techniques unlocked previously untapped deposits and helped wean the United States from ever-increasing dependence on imports.

Chesapeake Energy filed a lawsuit against its co-founder and former CEO Aubrey McClendon on Tuesday. The US oil and natural gas company has accused Mr. McClendon of theft of confidential company information towards the end of his tenure at Chesapeake. Chesapeake alleges the information was used to establish a new oil venture that came in direct with the Oklahoma-based company. According to a civil complaint filed in the Oklahoma County District Court, Mr.

The stock price of his energy company is down nearly 30%. The board stripped him of his chairmanship amid scandal. Today, his estimated billion-dollar personal fortune has shrunk by more than half.
Aubrey McClendon, 53, endured a trying year running the second-largest natural gas producer in the United States, Chesapeake Energy Corp. But as corporate, state and federal probes into McClendon and the company continue, 2013 isn’t looking much easier.

Aubrey McClendon, the billionaire CEO of natural gas giant Chesapeake Energy, opened his company’s first-quarter conference call on Wednesday by describing the last two weeks as “very challenging.” That may be an understatement — the last 48 hours alone have been dizzying.

Chesapeake Energy CEO Aubrey McClendon will retire effective April 1, according to a company release. Shares of CHK are surging in after-hours trading An internal review found McClendon did not engage in any improper conduct.

Chesapeake Energy shareholders revolted against the energy giant’s management and board Friday, withholding support for the two directors up for re-election and voting down the compensation plan for the company’s top executives.